A study of 25 popular Facebook pages focused on current affairs, conducted by think tank Pew Research Center, found then when it came to early assessments of the administration of President Joe Biden, posts from those pages were consistent with their self-identified ideological orientations. Pew used data from Facebook-owned public insights tool CrowdTangle to narrow…
President Joe Biden overturned executive orders from former President Donald Trump that aimed to prevent TikTok, WeChat and other communications and financial technology companies that are controlled by companies based in China from operating in the U.S., but those companies are not out of the woods yet. A new executive order signed by Biden this…
Facebook responded to the ruling on former President Donald Trump by its independent content oversight board, paving the way for his potential return to Facebook and Instagram Jan. 7, 2023–two years from the date when his accounts were suspended. The oversight board weighed in last month, upholding the social network’s decision to suspend for his…
TikTok banned political ads from its platform in October 2019, saying at the time that they did not fit with the experience provided by its platform, but there are ways around that ban, and they are being exploited, according to a new report from Mozilla. Researchers from Mozilla tapped TikTok’s application-programming interface and examined posts…
Conservative darling social platform Parler returned to the iTunes App Store Monday, with a “PG” version of its application that treats potentially toxic content differently than its Android counterpart does. Parler said in its iTunes App Store listing that the new version of its app had “enhanced threat and incitement reporting tools,” and chief policy…
After Donald Trump used social media to egg on an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, every major social media platform gave him the boot. Facebook, which had gone relatively easy on Trump’s past infractions, indefinitely suspended the then-president days before he was set to leave office. But the company kicked the decision…
Snapchat and VMLY&R have joined forces to encourage Gen Z users to vote in the U.K. local council elections on May 6. The partnership created “Speech to Street,” which features a Snapchat AR Lens acting as a political platform for users. The feature was developed as the winning entry of last year’s Snapchat Creative Council…
Presidents–even divisive ones–have historically shared one consolation prize when they leave office: As time moves on, Americans tend to take an increasingly generous view of them. A few years ago, Gallup conducted a poll asking Americans what they thought of nine former presidents, and nearly all of them enjoyed a good measure of reputation recovery….
There’s no denying that 2020 has been a difficult year and, according to Americans surveyed by Pew Research Center recently, social media isn’t helping. Pew said 64% of respondents believe social media has a mostly negative effect on the way things are currently going in the country, with roughly one-quarter saying those platforms have neither…
Challenges aren’t just for TikTok anymore, as a host of celebrities took to Instagram Reels as part of the #RunwayToThePolls challenge, aimed at driving people to vote early and from home. The #RunwayToThePolls challenge was spearheaded by I am a voter, in partnership with the Black in Fashion Council and the Council of Fashion Designers…
Despite what often seems like a one-man crusade by Republican President Donald Trump to tilt the balance, a new study from Pew Research Center found that Twitter is dominated by the Democrats. Pew analyzed the Twitter activity of 3,518 U.S. adults with public accounts whose Twitter activity could be matched to their survey responses, including…
For many years, conventional marketing wisdom held that brands should steer clear of political issues. The reasoning was simple enough: What company could afford to alienate a single customer by taking a position on something controversial? But as the socially conscious millennial generation has taken its place as a $1.4 trillion spending bloc, there’s been…
With Election Day less than three weeks away, early voting is currently underway in about 20 U.S. states. In one of many campaigns urging voters to set aside time to get to the polls during the early voting window–which generally means shorter lines and less congestion at polling locations–Brooklyn-based IPG agency Huge rolled out a…
As Election Day draws nearer, Instagram said the Voting Information Center it unveiled in August has been visited by over 35 million people. The Voting Information Center gives users one place to register to vote, confirm their registration status, make plans to vote and get whatever information they need prior to Election Day. Instagram also…
Key Insight: Twitch is emerging as an important platform for some GOTV organizations. In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, several major social media platforms threw their hands up and said they wouldn’t take political advertising. While these companies are sticking to that promise, a handful of them are making exceptions for ads that…
Pakistan’s telecommunications regulator ordered providers to block the popular social media app TikTok on Friday due to the company’s inability to remove “immoral” and “indecent” content. In a statement, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said it gave TikTok “considerable time to respond and comply” with its instructions to moderate “unlawful online content” but said the…
Election season is known to be a particularly heavy fundraising time of year. Candidates, PACs and nonprofits send emails, make phone calls and text us. For many of us, it becomes white noise, until you see something that stands out–which is Aidy Bryant. SNL’s Aidy Bryant took a creative approach to helping a candidate from…
Joe Biden became perhaps the most prominent voice in the Twitter chatter around Wednesday night’s vice presidential debate with a bit of trolling about the fly that lingered in Vice President Mike Pence’s hair. The former vice president and current presidential candidate was far from the only one to notice that a fly spent a…
“I’m speaking.” What kind of time are we living in when a woman in power speaking has to repetitively ask a man to stop interrupting her? Sad to say, we are still living it. Women on social cheered, twitter memes went viral and GIF’s were already circulating–all in support of Sen. Kamala Harris during Wednesday’s…
Facebook will temporarily halt all political ads on its platform after the polls close on election night in the U.S. The company previously said new political ads had to be bought more than a week prior to the election, but did not specify the policy after polls closed. Facebook said today that ads are an…
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